Ashes
by Kay Taylor
Summary: At Grimmauld Place, Tonks wonders if Bill is hiding something from the Order. Implied BillCharlie.


Bill comes downstairs every morning with the knees of his trousers dusty, as if he's been kneeling on the floor for a long time. Bill comes downstairs every morning smelling of ashes and cinders, as though he spends his night-time hours sleeping in fireplaces.   
  
Bill comes downstairs every morning and sits opposite Fleur, and smiles, and asks her how she slept, in tentative, poorly-accented French. She tosses her hair, and smiles, and reaches over the table to touch Bill on his arm, and there's a small burn-mark just below the elbow. It looks fresh, still shiny on the surface, and he covers it hastily.   
  
Tonks thinks that they've all spent so long being suspicious of the world outside that they've forgotten to be suspicious of each other; and why does Bill have dust in his hair, and why - when she takes a few minutes to dart upstairs, past the umbrella-stand, crash, and up into Bill's room on the top floor - is his bed never slept in? She supposes that he could be making it himself every morning, but it's not even warm, when she reaches out gingerly to touch the sheets. There are cobwebs on the pillows, and she thinks of Bill lying with the spiders, webs being spun in his spilling-scarlet hair while he sleeps.  
  
When she comes back downstairs, Fleur is whispering something in Bill's ear.  
  
There's something about Bill, like he's _there_ but not _all there_ and she can't even put it into words, but his sentences trail off and his eyes slide away from Fleur and he stirs his tea absent-mindedly, like he's thinking about something else.  
  
Where were you last night? is too dramatic, of course. Because more than anything, Tonks knows he was here, in the Order house. The dust by the fireplace in his room is disturbed, the faded carpet bearing tiny burn-marks from the leaping cinders. She knows he was here, but he certainly wasn't with Fleur, the way the twins think, the way she knows that Molly hopes. Molly thinks that the best way of getting through these harsh times is love, and Tonks has to agree she's right. But Molly also thinks that Bill is in love with the French girl, and suspects that the path to Bill's door is worn thin by Veela footsteps. Tonks doesn't think she's right about that, unless there's a secret passage connecting Bill and Fleur's rooms that comes out through the fireplace.  
  
The temptation is too much, of course, and that's how Tonks comes to be sitting outside Bill's room when everyone's gone to bed, wearing an Invisibility Cloak stolen from Alastor. She's trying to hold her breath, and the _don't-trip-over-don't-touch-anything-don't-make-a-noise_ chant is running through her head like a litany with the rhythm of steam trains, in and out and up and down. It feels like hours and hours while the house settles down, with the dull creaking and groaning of floorboards that comes with old houses, and the faint muttering and whispering that tells her that Kreacher is on the floor below, going through old photographs. The light in the twins' room goes out just after one o'clock, and Tonks almost falls asleep cocooned in the cloak and the dust, if it wasn't for the sudden soft - thud - that comes from inside Bill's room.  
  
No-one ever thought that the Order members would be spying on each other, and so there aren't any charms within the house; the Keyhole Enlargement works like a dream, with a faint sighing of air as the door changes shape, a faint creaking of old timbers. Tonks moves forwards - _don't-trip-over-don't-make-a-noise_ - and kneels in front of the keyhole, thinking that she had better spell her clothes clean the next day, because _two_ people covered in dust is suspicious beyond belief, and she doesn't want to be set upon by a disappointed Fleur or Molly.  
  
Bill is talking to someone through the fireplace, and the tell-tale green flames are billowing outward, the weird light making his hair look black, his skin green. She catches the words and and then Fleur was all over me again, and realises, with a feeling of relief that floods over her in waves, that he's talking to his brother Charlie. And when Bill shifts backwards slightly, complaining about the thinness of the carpet and the dust, she can see Charlie's head in the fireplace as well; she recognises the freckles, the scar just below his right cheekbone, his red hair.   
  
The keyhole isn't big enough for her to be able to hear much, and Bill keeps his voice low. She wonders about that for a while, because if he's talking to Charlie, there's no reason for secrecy, but then remembers how voices carry in the stillness of the Black house. Bill probably doesn't want to wake people up, she thinks. In the dimly lit room, Bill shifts to lie on his side, so close to the fire that she can tell how he got the cinders in his hair and the burn-marks on his arms.   
  
Well, it's not as if -  
  
They don't know, of course -  
  
God Char I miss you -  
  
Love -  
  
Tonks shifts slightly outside the door, because something about Bill's tone is _wrong_. Not like he's exchanging the day's news with his brother. There's a look on his face that's wrong all over, so - serious. As if there's nothing else in the world but Charlie's face in the fire, so close, but so maddeningly far away.   
  
I don't know how much longer I can take this, Bill whispers, putting his hand into the fire for a split-second, as if he's trying to touch Charlie. The green flames ebb and flow around him, and he's bathed in green light. Tonks doesn't even see him wince as the scars form on his hand.  
  
Ah, Char, he sighs, and Tonks realises that it's all wrong, everything is, and she moves backwards, desperately hoping that she hasn't been heard. The Keyhole reduction charm will have to wait for the next day, she realises, because she's been watching something far more intimate than she ever wanted to see, something so - real - that it's bringing goosebumps to her skin. The wanting in Bill's voice. His hand in the fire. And, before she looks away from the keyhole, before she can gather the Cloak back around herself and move away, his hand straying down his body, to the first button on his ash-stained trousers._  
_


End file.
